Five-time Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner announced on Monday that he will run for the French presidency in 2027, and said he has already begun preparing by training a team of civil servants in the ippon, the decisive throw, so they can be deployed to overturn stalled legislation in the National Assembly.
Under the plan presented at a press conference in Pointe-à-Pitre, Riner would convert the courtyard of the Ministry of Economy into a regulation tatami measuring eighteen metres on each side. Ministers would be required to take part in a weekly randori before cabinet meetings, and any official who fails to bow to the chair before speaking would be relegated to the regional offices in Cayenne for the rest of the term.
Asked by reporters how he would manage a national budget, Riner replied calmly that he had managed every opponent he had ever faced and saw no reason why the Treasury would differ. Within days, the Ministry of the Interior announced that all border checkpoints would be staffed by former athletes and that passport control would now be conducted in a standing grip.
Emmanuel Macron, who presented Riner with the Ordre national du Mérite after the Paris 2024 Games, said the candidacy could only bring something to the country. Opinion pollsters have since begun asking voters whether they would accept being thrown during a ballot, and the Guadeloupe regional council has voted to rename its main square after the candidate's most famous technique.